Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown

Five years ago, I cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner, by myself, for the very first time.

It was utter nonsense. The kitchen in the poorly named Malibu Palms Complex* had enough counter space for a small dish drainer and a dorm-sized microwave (no dishwasher, which meant the dish drainer was a necessity). It had a 3/4-sized oven with one rack, which meant only one pot, pan, or cookie sheet could fit in it at once. The refrigerator door only opened 3/4 of the way, as it hit the stove and could go no further. There was garage shelving in the kitchen, to make up for the lack of cabinet/counter space.

It meant baking the pies, one at a time, the night before, then getting up at 5 a.m. to put the turkey in and start the rolls, which would go in when the turkey came out. It meant that rolling pie dough out on the dining room table, cooking the stuffing in a crock pot on the floor (no counter space, and there was a bird in the oven) and eliminating any offers of help because with pies and rolls on the table, the in-progress or finished sides on one of the shelves of the industrial shelving unit, the cutting board on top of the microwave - where the potatoes, sweet potatoes and fruits and veggies were chopped, the bird in the oven, four pots on the stove, and the stuffing on the floor, there was no room for another human being - helpful or otherwise.

Ironically, it was also the year I decided to make homemade cranberry sauce. As if homemade stuffing, rolls and pies weren't already enough to earn me the title role of Queen of Holiday Insanity.

The five of us (Himself, myself, two stray Navy friends of Himself's and a random girl on holiday from Dover AFB) sat down to eat dinner at the 4-person dining room table in the middle of the living room, because the kitchen (the table's normal place of occupancy) was too small to actually USE the table for anything but a one-person countertop. This meant displacing the pies, rolls, etc. and putting them on top of the stove. Serving dinner was like going to a progressive dinner - each item was dished up from some random location - right down to the stuffing still being on the floor.

Dinner took 15 hours to prepare and 15 minutes to eat. The clean up (due to lack of space, lack of ability to open the fridge all the way, lack of a dishwasher and lack of space enough to cajole anyone else into helping) took another 4 hours. I went to bed exhausted, only to have to rise the next morning and head to work.

I vowed, "Never Again!"

Except, well, I did it again. Twice more. And I liked it. The kitchen in NoVa was larger, much nicer, had tons of counter and cabinet space, opened to the living room (all the better to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade), and I gave up on homemade stuffing, cranberry sauce and having guests. (As it turns out, Himself hates stuffing, Grover only eats the boxed kind and Jane doesn't like onions - why kill myself for something only I liked?).

Two years ago we went to the World's Smallest Townhouse for Thanksgiving - I only had to bring the pies (Pumpkin Mousse and Coconut Cream). Last year, we had The Great Pie Gathering at my Uncle's, and I only had to bring the pies (Key Lime, Coconut Cream) and homemade macaroni and cheese.

As it turns out, Great Malibu Palms Holiday Insanity of 2003 aside, I prefer staying home for Thanksgiving. However, it appears to be the eighth deadly sin to stay home for a holiday now that we're within hundreds of miles (versus thousands of miles) from family. Which means we will be trekking to the Great Frozen North on Thursday with pies (Pumpkin, Key Lime and Coconut Cream - see a pattern?), all of Woodstock's baby gear, festive attitudes and enough clothing for a 2-3 day stay.

Next year, we're having a roast chicken (Himself actually doesn't like turkey), roast sweet potatoes and pies (we don't need anything but the basic favorites), watching the parade, sleeping in, watching football, playing board games and eating leftovers for four days - the only leftovers I truly like. Not necessarily in that order.

God bless the pilgrims for enduring the North Atlantic seas in the fall, learning to harvest a crop and inspiring a president to make their celebratory meal a national holiday more than two centuries later.



*1. Palm trees aren't indigenous to Virginia's tidewater region - or to Virginia at all, as a matter of fact. 2. It was as close to a ghetto complex as you could get without actually living IN the ghetto, right down to having to call the cops on the neighbors. 3. Malibu is in California, not in Virginia.